About vv

The Philosophy: Why was vv built?

When developers run long tasks in a terminal — like apt upgrade, make -j16, docker build, or a large disk backup — they often switch to a browser or other windows. Two frustrating problems frequently occur:

1. Resource starvation: A heavy compilation spikes CPU and disk queues, causing UI stutters, lagging audio, and unresponsive browser tabs.
2. Uncertain completion & lost context: You forget about the terminal, only to check back 30 minutes later to discover it completed in 40 seconds (or failed after 2 seconds with an error).
3. False completion from kernel writeback caches: When a disk-heavy job finishes, the Linux page cache may still be holding hundreds of megabytes of unwritten data. Unmounting or shutting down immediately can cause data loss or unexpected hangs.

vv elegantly solves all three: it runs tasks at nice CPU priority (19) and idle I/O priority (3), times the execution, explicitly flushes dirty pages with sync, and alerts you via an audible chime and desktop notification the exact moment it is done.

Open Source & Community

vv is 100% free and open source software licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (GPLv3). We welcome contributions, bug reports, and suggestions from developers worldwide.